Members

PI

Ryan Folk

I am an assistant professor at the Department of Biological Sciences at Mississippi State University. I am also the curator of the herbarium MISSA.

I work on plant biodiversity from evolutionary and ecological perspectives and have a special interest in bioinformatics approaches that use herbarium specimens and other biocollections data. Hobbies! Illustrations! Bionomia profile.

My full CV may be found here.

Postdocs

Carolina Siniscalchi

Carol comes to us from the Mandel lab at the University of Memphis, having previously done undergrad, masters, and PhD degrees at the Universidade de São Paulo. She is an expert in composite and legume systematics as well as plant phylogenomics.

She is working with us to understand the origins and ecology of nitrogen-fixing symbioses with bioinformatics approaches.

For more information see her scholar page and her personal website.

Graduate Students

Nicholas Engle-Wrye

Nick is interested in plant systematics, functional biogeography, and phenomics.

For his PhD, he is investigating the role of conserved floral scent as a driver of hybridization in Heuchera and species delimitation of the Heuchera americana complex using integrative taxonomic approaches.

Sushil Dahal

Sushil started working with us in 2021 as an undergraduate researcher, and is incoming as a Biological Sciences PhD student.

He is working on wetlab methods and currently focusing on species delimitation problems in Symphyotrichum.

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This could be you! We are searching for graduate students and recruiting now for Spring/Fall 2022! Contact me about opportunities and projects!

Undergraduate Students

Stephanie Dauber

Stephanie has been working in the lab and herbarium since Fall 2019 on a number of projects in the lab, including phylogenomics, microbiome work, and trait scoring on herbarium specimens. She is also one of our best plant mounters and repairers! We miss her as she is off for a bit on a professional co-op experience!

Sofia Nail

Sofia started with us in late spring 2021 and is learning molecular techniques as well as plant morphometrics.

Reagan Conner

Reagan started with us at the end of summer 2020. She has mainly been working on microbiome projects to understand plant endophyte diversity.

Tajinder Singh

TJ just started with us in Fall 2021. He is working on specimen-based methods and molecular methods.

This could also be you! We have many opportunities in the lab for motivated undergraduates who need research experience in the life sciences, including REU positions funded by the National Science Foundation!

Alumni

Matt Mattox

Matt worked in the lab with us from Fall 2019 to Fall 2020 as an REU student and helped us build tons of libraries and extract DNA. He's an expert at the magnet! He has finished his undergraduate degree and has moved on to a job at Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Peyton Dunn

Peyton worked with us from Spring 2020 to Spring 2021 as an REU student. He mostly worked on a number of remote projects focused on scoring herbarium sheets for color and phenology scoring. He has moved on to a co-op experience as he completes his undergraduate degree.

Kelli Broussard

Kelli joined the lab and herbarium over summer 2020 through summer 2021 as an REU student. She focused on a new phenology project we have going and our microbiome projects. She is off to med school at LSU.

Paige Marrota

Paige worked with us in the winter and spring of 2021 as an REU student, focusing mainly on DNA techniques and has moved on to a medical lab tech job.

Briana Johnston

Briana started in late 2020 as an REU student and focused on herbarium and wetlab methods through to summer 2021. She is off to graduate school at the University of Arkansas.

Zoe Fowler

Zoe worked in the lab at the over summer 2021 to learn molecular techniques. She is off to graduate school at Georgia Tech!

Photo: Boykinia aconitifolia